Tennant Lake's water trail

We've been having wonderfully warm temperatures here in Northwest Washington. Artist point is opening today, it's the earliest opening since 2005
 (read about it here: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2013/06/28/3072764/artist-point-opens-monday-earliest.html).
We enjoyed spending our Sunday at Tennant lake near Hovander farm. We hadn't been there for awhile and it was heavenly. To get to the water trail you first go through the Fragrance garden. It's a sniff, touch and feel garden. Notice the view of Mt. Baker in the archway.

(click on the pictures to enlarge)

On the way to the boardwalk trail there is a view tower that is a must to climb the stairs inside and catch the views.

bridge crossing the creek

Water trail pictures -

and then it finishes in the Fragrance garden again -

North Butte - Blanchard Mountain

I had originally planned to start hiking with the Senior Trailblazers yesterday but my husband had the day off, so we decided to hike to the North Butte viewpoint on Blanchard Mountain instead. We started on the Alternate Incline trail, heading towards Lizard lake went all the way to the viewpoint on the top then came back down by Lily lake and returned by way of Max's shortcut.

Lizard Lake

Beaver activity

View from the top

Lily Lake

Very industrious Beaver activity

Columbine

It was a really nice hike, after doing Oyster Dome last week 

I didn't know if my legs would do it but it was great fun.

Endomondo stats:
7.76 total miles hiked

I've been hiking alot to get into shape to hike with the Trailblazers again. Here's the post I wrote that has a summary of the hikes I did to prepare for joining them again - https://hearsdifferentdrummer.blogspot.com/2013/06/our-resident-frog.html